What Happened to the Reference Section?

Lately, the more I write the more I drown myself in doubt. Do I know what I'm doing? Is this story any good? Would anyone want to read it (other than me)? Should I change this character? Do I need more characters?

I fret, groan, and moan but keep plugging along.

Now that I am nearing the completion of revision round #1 of my manuscript, I am starting to doubt my writing technical expertise. I am a sucker for commas, and have yet to meet an adverb that I didn't like. I've known these two things for many years, so these are the "easy" edits that I make as I comb through pages. I decided that I needed some advice and guidance on fixing the not-so-obvious errors. It was time to repurchase a grammar book or two. A writer should always have one of those handy right?

I thought that I'd check out my options by visiting my local bookstore. (Okay- I admit that I look for ANY excuse to buy new books.) I used to spend hours pouring through hundreds of different books on all sorts of interesting writer topics. There were books to help you develop your characters, books to help you write realistic descriptions of places you'd never actually visited, books to help with voice and dialogue, and row after row after row on prompts and the technical "how-to's" to writing. It used to be a full aisle.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that this wonderful section was now a half of one side of a rather short aisle. Of course there was a shelf for all the Writer's Market info, and the obligatory dictionary and thesaurus shelves. The popular books like Stephen King's On Writing, Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, and Strunk & White's The Element's of Style were all faced out. (The only oldie by goodie missing was Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones) But all of the other fun references were gone. I didn't see one book on query letters or manuscript formatting! But with such a small section, I guess they had to be picky about what they had keep in stock, and it makes sense to stick with the home run hitters.

I will miss my bookstore reference section, but this is just another good reason to head to my local library.